Defiant Obama slams Bush Guantanamo 'mess'

President Barack Obama has vowed no retreat on closing Guantanamo Bay, branding the prison a "mess" and charging that Bush-era anti-terror tactics were rooted in fear and ideology.

Mr Obama also raised the prospect of holding the most dangerous Al-Qaeda detainees indefinitely in US "super-max" jails, in a major speech Thursday designed to recapture the initiative in a row over his national security policies.

Minutes later, former vice president Dick Cheney stepped up, in a compelling duel between present and past administrations, forcibly defending former President George W. Bush's policies in his own nationally-televised speech.

Obama, however, took his own swipe at Cheney, who has been leading the Republican charge against his anti-terror policies.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday joined Republicans in a lopsided 90-6 vote to forbid transferring to US soil any of the 240 detainees held at Guantanamo.

How did the US prison at Guantanamo Bay come about?

• The detention camp was set up by the Bush administration in 2002 to hold foreigners captured after US-led forces invaded Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

• The US holds 240 prisoners at Guantanamo and has released or transferred to other governments about 530 other men and teenagers previously held there. Two were released by the Obama administration and the rest by the Bush administration.

• Charges were pending against 21 Guantanamo prisoners, though the Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo trials had referred only 14 cases to trial when the Obama administration froze the proceedings in January in order to rework the rules. The freeze has been extended until mid-September.

Moves to close Guantanamo

• Bush administration officials repeatedly said they wanted to close the controversial prison, but never advanced a plan to do so. They concluded last year that closure would require legislation that was too difficult to negotiate in a heated election season.

• Shortly after taking office in January, Mr Obama ordered the closing of Guantanamo. He set a one-year deadline for shutting the prison, barred harsh treatment of terrorism suspects held there and closed secret CIA jails overseas.

• The President's fellow Democrats in the US Senate moved on Tuesday to cut €57 million earmarked for closing the prison camp amid reports the administration was considering moving some of the detainees to the US and criticism it had no plan for dealing with the prisoners.

What to do with the prisoners?

• Three prosecutions have been completed in the Guantanamo tribunal system formally known as military commissions. One defendant pleaded guilty, one was convicted in a contested trial and one was convicted after putting up no defence. The tribunals were authorised after the September 11 attacks to try non-US citizens on terrorism charges outside the regular civilian and military courts.

• Mr Obama's order to close Guantanamo kicked off a review process to deal with relocating, releasing or prosecuting the remaining detainees.

• In January, Mr Obama ordered Guantanamo prosecutors to seek 120-day delays in all pending cases to give his administration time to decide whether to scrap the widely criticized tribunals created by the Bush administration to try suspected terrorists outside the regular US court system. He angered supporters last Friday by reviving the military commission system with some rule changes to better protect the rights of the accused. He also extended the freeze another 120 days.